PHIL’S STORY.
He did not tell it until two days after Christine’s burial, for Queenie
would not listen to him until she felt that he was past all possible
danger of a relapse. Then, with her head leaning upon his arm and his
hand clasped in hers, she heard how he had escaped from death on that
night when the boat was capsized and he found himself struggling for
life in the angry waters.
“My friend wrote you,” he said, “how the accident occurred and how for
hours we clung to the boat, which was being drawn rapidly out to sea.
For a time I kept up bravely, though for myself I cared but little to
live, life was so dark and hopeless to me then. But I remembered my
mother, who would mourn for me, and made every possible exertion to hold
on. When we were capsized I struck my head just over the temple upon
some iron surface of the boat, and I know now that the blow was of
itself almost sufficient to cause my death. As it was, I felt stunned
and bewildered and my strength was fast failing me when my friend bade
me try and reach him, as he thought he could help me. I remember
reaching out one hand toward him, while I tried to change my position,
but my foot was caught in something which, when I lost my hold and
floated away from the boat, was also detached and floated with me. It
was the grating from the bottom of the boat, and it proved my salvation,
for, as I came to the surface after sinking once beneath the waters, I
caught at it and clung to it desperately, while the waves carried me far
away from my companion, who, seeing me go down, naturally supposed I
must be drowned. Indeed, I do not myself know how I was saved, or had
the strength to endure the horrors of that night and hold to my frail
support as I did.
“At last daylight broke over the waters, and a small vessel, bound for
the southern coast of Africa, passed near me as I floated. I had then no
power to signal them, my arms were so cramped and numb, but one of the
sailors spied me, and a boat was at once lowered and sent to my rescue.
How they got me on board I do not know, for all sense forsook me from
the moment I felt a hand laid upon my shoulder, and when next I awoke to
a consciousness of anything, I was lying in a close berth, and a dark
face was bending over me, speaking in a language I could not comprehend.
But the voice was kind, and the face a good-natured one, and I remember
thinking that I should be cared for until I reached some point where I
could make myself understood. My head was paining me dreadfully, and was
probably the cause of the weeks and months of partial insanity which
followed. I had taken a frightful cold, a burning fever set in, and for
days I raved like a madman, they told me afterward and made several
attempts to throw myself into the sea. It was useless for them to ask me
anything, as their language was gibberish to me, as mine was to them.
But _one_ word they learned perfectly—it was on my lips so
constantly—and that was your name. No matter what they said to me, I
always answered Queenie, until every officer and common sailor in the
boat knew the name, and could say it as well as I, though they little
dreamed who the Queenie was I talked about so constantly.”
“Oh, Phil!” Queenie cried, with streaming eyes; “and _I_ was mourning
for _you_, and thinking you were dead, and was so sorry for having sent
you away. Can you ever forgive me, Phil, for all I have made you
suffer?”
His answer, not given in words, was quite satisfactory, and then he went
on:
“They thought at last it must be my own name, and called me Queenie
whenever they addressed me or spoke of me. The voyage was rather long,
owing to adverse winds and the bad condition of the ship, but they
reached their destination at last, and gave me at once into the charge
of some English who were living there. But these could get no
satisfaction from me with regard to my home, or friends, or name. I had
fallen into a weak, half-imbecile, frame of mind, and was very taciturn
and reserved, refusing sometimes to talk at all, though always, when I
did speak, begging them to carry me home. At intervals I suffered
greatly in my head, and even now at times, if I touch the spot upon my
temple where I received the blow, I experience a sensation like an
electric shock, showing that the injury I received was a most serious
one.
“And so the time wore on, and, as I was perfectly harmless, I was
allowed to do as I pleased, and gradually, as I grew stronger in health,
my mind regained its balance, and I was able to recall the past, or
rather to remember up to the time when I was in the water holding to the
grating of the boat. Everything else was a blank, and is so to me now. I
have no recollection whatever of the voyage to Zanguibar, or of the
months which followed my arrival there, and it was some little time
before I could comprehend my position, or realize how long it was since
I was at Madras and started with my friend on the excursion which ended
so disastrously. My first act was to write at once to my father, who, I
naturally supposed, must think me dead, but the letter was probably
miscarried or lost, for it never reached him.
“At last a chance came for me to leave the coast, and I availed myself
of it. An English sailing vessel, bound for Liverpool, took me on board,
but, as if I were a second Jonah, we encountered heavy seas and violent
storms, so that we were double the usual length of time in reaching
Liverpool, where I took a steamer for New York, where I landed just a
week before you found me here. Not wishing to shock my family, as I knew
they would be shocked if they had never received my letter, I
telegraphed to Mr. Beresford that I should be home on the next train
from New York. The news took him as much by surprise as if one of the
dead bodies in the grave-yard had walked in upon him, and I have been
told that all Merrivale was wild with excitement, and that Uncle Tom,
usually so quiet and undemonstrative, went himself and rang the
fire-bell, to call the people out so as to tell them the news. I really
believe the entire town was at the station to meet me when the train
came in, and had I permitted it some of the men would have carried me in
their arms up the hill to my very door, where Ethel and Grace and
grandma were waiting to receive me. Mother was in bed, going from one
fainting fit to another, and father was with her trying to quiet her.
Poor old father, I used to think he cared more for his ferns and his
flowers than for his children, but I have changed my mind, and never
shall forget the expression of his face when he met me at the door, and,
leading me to my mother, said to her, so tenderly:
“Here he is, Mary—here is our boy. Now please don’t faint again.
‘Praised be God.’
“To me he never spoke a word for full five minutes, but sat smoothing
and patting my hands, and rubbing with his handkerchief a speck of dirt
from my coat sleeve, while he looked at me so lovingly, with the great
tears in his eyes and his lips quivering with his emotions. He has grown
old so fast within the last few months. His hair is quite gray, and he
stoops when he walks, though I do believe he was straighter when I came
away, and younger, too, in looks. I did not know my friends were so fond
of a good-for-nothing like me. It was almost worth my while to go and be
drowned for the sake of all the petting I had at home the few days I
remained there. But one thing was wanting. _You_ did not come to meet
me, and I wondered at it, for I think I had half expected to see your
face among the very first to welcome me, and I felt disappointed and a
little hurt at its absence. I did not know but you were Mr. Beresford’s
wife, and though the thought that it might be so hurt me cruelly, I had
made up my mind to hide the hurt and make the best of the inevitable. It
would be some comfort to see you, even if you belonged to another, and
all the time I was receiving the welcome congratulations of my friends,
I was thinking of and watching for you. But you did not appear, and no
one mentioned your name until late in the evening, when Ethel asked me
to go with her for a walk in the garden before retiring, and then she
told me the strangest story I ever heard of you and Margery, who, it
seems, is my cousin, while you——”
He paused a moment, while Queenie turned very white, and with a long,
gasping breath, said, faintly:
“Yes, Phil, I know what I am. Don’t remind me please.”
“Queenie,” and Phil drew the trembling girl closer to him, and stroking
her bowed head continued: “Do you for a moment suppose that I have ever
given the accident of your birth a thought, except to be glad, with a
gladness I cannot express, that you are _not_ my cousin? And when Ethel
told me of your grief at my supposed death, and the love you were not
then ashamed to confess for me, I felt that I must fly to you at once,
and only my mother’s weak condition and her entreaties for me to wait a
little kept me from doing so. She and my sisters thought you were in
Florida, for Margery had kept your secret, as you wished, and had not
told them of your rash plan of coming here into this atmosphere of
infection and death. But she told me when I went next day to see her,
and told me, too, of all the remorse, and pain, and bitter humiliation
you had endured; and, better than all the rest, of the perfect trust and
faith you had in me—that were I living a hundred Christines could make
no difference with me, and she was right. I would have called that woman
mother for your sake had she lived, and treated her with as much respect
as if she had been Margaret Ferguson instead of Christine Bodine. My
_cousin_ Margery I adopted at once. She is a noble woman, and so true to
you. By the way, I fancy that Mr. Beresford visits Hetherton Place quite
as often as he used to do in the days when I was so horridly jealous of
him, and you played with us both as the cat plays with the mouse it has
captured. And I am glad, for the match is every way suitable. Beresford
is a noble fellow—a little too proud, perhaps, in some respects, and a
trifle peculiar, too; but Margery will cure all that, and I would rather
see him master of Hetherton Place than any one I know, if Margery must
be its mistress. She wishes you to return and live with her; but of that
by and by. When she told me where you were, my heart gave a great throb
of terror for you, and I resolved to start at once and take you away if
I should find you alive. I had a mortal fear of the fever, and this, I
think, added to my mental excitement and the low state of my health,
made me more liable to take it, as I did almost immediately, for I was
sick and unable to leave my bed the very first morning after my arrival,
and before I had time to inquire for you. You know how Christine found
me and saved my life, for but for her I should most surely have died.
“And now, Queenie, I have been talking with the physician, who says I
must leave the city at once if I would recover my strength, and he
advises a stay of a few weeks in some quiet, cool spot among the
mountains of Tennessee, where I shall grow strong and lazy again. You
know that is my strong point—laziness.”
He looked a little quizzically at her, but she paid no attention. She
only said:
“I think that would be so nice. Have you decided upon the place?”
He told her of a little spot which the physician had recommended, where
the air was pure and the water good, and then continued:
“But I cannot go alone; it would be so poky and forlorn, with nobody I
know. I must have a nurse to look after me and keep me straight. Will
you go with me, Queenie?” he said, looking earnestly into the eyes which
met his so innocently, as, without a blush, Queenie answered:
“Of course I’ll go with you, Phil. Did you think I would let you go
alone?”
She was so guileless and unsuspecting of evil that it seemed almost a
pity to open her eyes and show her that the world is not always
charitable in its construction of acts, however innocent in
themselves—that Mrs. Grundy is a great stickler for the proprieties, and
that for a young girl to go alone to a hotel or boarding-house as nurse
to a young man in no way related to her would make every hair of that
venerable lady’s head stand upright with horror. But Phil must do it,
both for her sake and by way of accomplishing the end he had in view. So
he said to her:
“I knew you would go with me; but, Queenie, do you know that for Queenie
_Hetherton_ to go to the mountains as a nurse to a great long-legged,
rather fast-looking fellow like Phil Rossiter, would be to compromise
herself sadly in the estimation of some people.”
I doubt if Queenie quite comprehended him, for she looked at him
wonderingly, and said:
“I don’t know what you mean by my being compromised. I think it is an
ugly word, and not at all one you should use with reference to myself,
as if I should not always behave like a lady, whether I was taking care
of you among the mountains, or here in Memphis, as I am doing now.”
She was getting a little excited, and her eyes shone with the gleam Phil
remembered so well and rather liked to provoke.
“Yes, I know,” he said, “but don’t you remember what you told me of the
_cats_ at the St. James, who used to spy upon the young people and make
remarks about them? Well there are _cats_ everywhere, and they would
find us out in the mountains, and however quiet and modest you might be,
they would set up a dreadful caterwauling because you were with me, and
not at all related to me. They would tear you in pieces, till you had
not a shred of reputation left. Do you understand now that as Queenie
Hetherton you cannot go with me?”
“No, I don’t understand,” she answered wrathfully, “and I think it mean
in you to ask me first if I will go, and then, when I say yes, to talk
to me about _cats_, and compromise and reputation, as if I were bad, and
immodest, and every sort of a thing. No, Phil, I didn’t expect this from
you; I must say I did not, and I don’t like it, and I don’t like you
either—_there!_ and I won’t stay here any longer to hear such dreadful
talk!”
For one who had pledged herself never to lose her temper again under any
circumstances, Queenie was a good deal excited, as she wrenched her hand
from Phil’s and flounced from the room, leaving him to chuckle over her
anger, which he had anticipated, and which he felt sure would result in
her doing just as he wished her to do. And he was right in his
calculations, for, after the lapse of an hour or two, during which
Pierre had brought him his lunch, the little lady appeared in a most
repentant frame of mind, and standing by him, with her hand on his
shoulder, said:
“I am sorry, Phil, I was so angry with you. I did not think I ever
should be again, but you did rouse me so with your _cats_, and
_compromising_, and all that, after you had asked me to go. But I see
you were right. It would not be proper at all, and people would be sure
to talk. But you must take Pierre. I should feel safer about you, and
can do very well without him. I know the way to Florida, and shall start
to-morrow, for if it is improper for me to take care of you in the
mountains, it is improper here, now you are so much better; so I am
going back to Magnolia Park. But, Phil,” and Queenie’s voice began to
tremble, “you’ll come there next winter, won’t you? You, and Ethel, and
Grace, and Margery? That will make it quite proper and conventional, and
it is so lonely there.”
She was crying by this time, and Phil, who, as she was talking, had
stolen his arm around her, drew her down upon his knee and, brushing
away her tears, said:
“Yes, darling, if you are in Florida next winter, or next week, I shall
be there, too; for in the words of Naomi, ‘Where thou goest I shall go,’
whether to the mountains or to the moon, and, as the mountains suit me
best just now, what say you to going there at once?”
“But I thought you said I wasn’t to go—that it would be very
disreputable, or some other dreadful word like that? I don’t understand
you at all,” Queenie said, hotly, and Phil replied:
“You are an innocent chick, that’s a fact, and cannot see through a
millstone. I said that as Queenie _Hetherton_ you must not go scurriping
round the world with a yellow-haired chap of the period like me; but as
Queenie Rossiter, my wife, you will be a matron _sans reproche_.”
“_Your wife_, Phil!” Queenie exclaimed, starting suddenly and trying to
free herself from him. But he held her fast, and answered:
“Yes, my wife, and why not? You are bound to be that some time, and why
wait any longer? We can be married here to-night or to-morrow, if you
please, with Pierre and our landlord for witnesses, and we shall be as
firmly tied as if all Merrivale were present at the ceremony. You do not
care for bride-maids, and flowers, and flummery. I am sure Anna
exhausted all that. And to me you are sweeter and fairer in this black
dress, which was put on for me, than you would be in all the white satin
robes and laces in the world. Shall it be so, love? Will you marry me
to-morrow, and at once start for Tennessee?”
Queenie did not care for satins, or laces or bridal favors, but to be
married so suddenly, and in such an informal manner, shocked her at
first, and Phil had some little difficulty in getting her consent. But
it was won at last. A desire to be with him, to go where he went, and
have him to herself, prevailed over every other feeling, and early the
next morning, with Pierre, and their landlord, and the sister who had
cared for poor Christine as witnesses, Queenie and Phil were married,
their wedding a great contrast to what Queenie had thought her wedding
would be. But she was very, very happy, and Pierre thought he had never
see his young mistress one-half so beautiful as she was in her simple
black dress, with only bands of white linen at her throat and wrists,
and the brightness of a great happiness in her face and in her brilliant
eyes. She was Phil’s at last. The joy she had thought never could be
hers had come to her, greater far than she had ever dreamed, and in her
happiness all the sad past was forgotten, and she could think of
Christine without a pang.
“Next fall we will come here again, and place a tablet at mother’s
grave,” she said to Phil, and by the name she gave the dead he knew that
the old bitterness was gone, and that Queenie was content.
They took the first train for Brierstone, a quiet, lovely spot among the
mountains of Tennessee, where, in the cool, bracing air, Phil felt
himself growing stronger every hour, and where the bright color came
back to Queenie’s cheeks, and the old sparkle to the eyes which had shed
so many bitter tears since the day when the news first came to her of
the lover drowned in the Indian waters.